Entries from February 2008
Better Ways to Qualify Leads at the Trade Show
You’re on the trade show floor, ready to make the most of the time and effort it took to get there. People drift in and out of your booth throughout the day and you’ve got to quickly judge who’s hot and who’s not.
The trick is to start a conversation that will help you determine if a visitor is a qualified sales lead. The best way to do that is by asking questions.
Typical closed-ended questions such as “May I help you?” get you useless answers like “No thank. Just looking.”
So start off with an open-ended question like “Out of all the places you could be today, why did you choose to come to this show?” or “With all the exhibits you could visit this afternoon, what brought you to ours?”
Then keep the conversation going by turning your typically closed-ended questions about budget, authority, need and timing into open-ended questions. For example, ask “How does this kind of purchase get funded at your company?” and “Who all is involved in the decision process, and what are their roles?” and “What problems are you trying to solve?” and “When do you think you’ll be making the decision to go ahead?”
And one last tip…
If you have determined that a visitor to your trade show exhibit isn’t qualified, but he continues to monopolize your time, end the conversation quickly but politely. How? By handing him a brochure while saying something like, “Here’s some additional information about our product that you can review back at the office.” Next say “Thanks for stopping by.” and shake his hand. Then turn and walk away.
The Essential Marketing-for-Leads Formula
Here’s a marketing formula that’s created solid leads for large, medium and small companies, regardless of their business focus. Finding, nurturing and qualifying sales leads using marketing will increase your bottom line when you’ve got the right process.
Build a clean database
Not every business can or will buy from your company. Gather all the miscellaneous lists of suspects, prospects and customers at your company and have a third-party list service to help you merge them, purge duplicates, update postal addresses and append information such as industry and company size. The list service can add companies and contacts similar to your best customers and those in the specific vertical or niche markets you’ve identified as targets. Your goal is to determine which companies appear to have a need for what you’re selling, are receptive to working with your kind and size of company, and have the ability to buy when the time’s right. Then aim your marketing at them.
Keep in touch on a regular basis
You should use the database to drive regular direct marketing campaigns via direct mail, e-mail and telemarketing. Aim to use direct marketing to touch prospects at least once a quarter, but monthly is better. Even if you don’t make it every month you’re still ahead.
This approach also works well for nurturing longer-term prospects. And they are worth it! My research shows that the short-term buyers — those who buy within six months — represent only a quarter of the sales that will happen. The other three out of four sales occur between six months and two years later.
Multiple offers or calls-to-action
I recommend you always make more than one offer; each designed to appeal to people at different stages of the sales cycle. For example, offer info kits, whitepapers and case studies for those early in their consideration/buying process. Offer worksheets, checklists, webinars or live seminars for those a bit further along. Offer demos, assessments, quotations and “if you buy now…” offers for those who are ready to move forward with their buying decision.
Optimize your website to lead prospects through the sales cycle
Instead of scaring prospective customers away with confusing or out-of-date information on your website, consider re-focusing its content to help your prospects determine that your company is their best choice. Provide clear choices of navigation to help visitors self-identify where on the path they are and what step is next.
Involve the sales team when creating sales tools
If your salespeople turn more of your marketing-generated leads into sales, you won’t have to generate as many leads and you will get a higher return on both your marketing and sales investments. So what tools do they need? Start by asking them, or ride along on sales call and see for yourself.
Yes, this is a pretty basic formula. But I’m always surprised how many marketers go off the deep end on fancy or expensive marketing tactics that don’t get results. Instead, I recommend you start with this basic, but proven, formula. Add fancier and more expensive marketing ingredients to the mix later, when you can afford to experiment.
Optimizing Email Marketing Campaigns
As part of ongoing lead nurturing, I recommend staying in touch via multiple methods. Email is usually one of those methods.
With email marketing, I recommend aiming for sending something monthly. Why? To stay in mind and in sight as your prospects move from awareness to consideration to purchase, and to increase your chance of being there at the right time. But not too often to become a pest and risk increased opt-outs.
Beyond getting your e-newsletter or marketing piece out the door, there’s plenty you can do to improve results, both big and small. Some key ideas you may not be considering:
- Make sure your email can be viewed well in the preview pane of email applications. And how does it look on your Blackberry or phone?
- Check that you’re not using words that automated spam filters consider questionable.
- Use enough text in case images are turned off, and use some text early in the email so it can be read in the preview pane.
- Subject lines can have a surprising effect on open rates. Keep on top of your metrics and test even small changes.
- Is the IP address of the server that the email is being sent from on a blacklist?
Looking for more ideas? I came across a useful list of 100+ Tools and Tutorials to Optimize Your Email Marketing Campaigns. They’re grouped into topics for convenience:
- Email Marketing Packages
- Testing
- Analytics & Evaluation
- Deliverability & Reputation
- Design
- Spam
- Mailing Lists
- Subject Line
- Timing & Frequency
- Conversion
- Tips & Advice
- Information Sources
What have you learned to improve your email marketing? Please share a tip that helped.
13 Don’ts of Promoting Events
Having worked with dozens of large, medium and small companies in planning and promoting their marketing events, I’ve learned what can make events succeed or flop. So when investing your time and money promoting your next event, consider these tips to avoid learning the hard way.
Events are a great way to increase leads and move prospects along the sales cycle. But you’ve got to promote them well to maximize the number of prospective customers who will attend.
- Don’t use a writer within the company just because they’re an employee, if they’re not up to the task. Freelance writers may get better results.
- Don’t hire a freelance writer who doesn’t have experience with direct marketing or promotional writing. Having an experienced writer will have a direct benefit in terms of attendance.
- Don’t assume your audience already understands the value of participating. Provide thorough copy and detailed benefits to show there’s valuable information and that your event is worth the time and energy to attend.
- Don’t let grammatical errors or typos slip through.
- Don’t assume URLs, phone numbers, email addresses and directions are correct and working properly until you test each one.
- Don’t focus on selling the company, sell the event to bring in the attendees.
- Don’t leave out positive comments from others who’ve attended.
- Don’t have a dull headline without clear benefits. Generate excitement and interest to make a good first impression. For example, “7 HR Mistakes That Can Cost You Big Bucks– and How to Avoid Them.”
- Don’t use formal invitations or postcards. Generally, registrations plummet with these types of pieces because there’s no room for details.
- Don’t wait too long to start promoting your event. Get on decision-makers calendars before they commit themselves elsewhere.
- Don’t promote too early, then fail to keep in touch.
- Don’t rely on only one method of communication. Emails get caught in spam filters for unpredictable reasons and direct mail may not be delivered properly or thrown out accidentally.
- Don’t forget to remind them your event is approaching as time draws near. Follow up with key prospects via telephone, and sending last-minute, “See you there!” e-mails to registrants.
Do you have any “Don’t”s to add? If you’ve worked on a project like this before, inevitably there’s something that could have gone better. Add a comment, I’d like to hear about it.
